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Monday, September 12, 2011

Oh the humanity!

Ugh... I have debated whether or not I would write about this, and decided I would. I will take one for the team and let my embarrassment be a source of amusement for you.

I have only been working at my current job for about 2 months and they love me there (not to toot my own horn or anything, but I am pretty amazing). I do typical office type work which includes alot of writing. I have always loved writing, but never thought it would be something I could make money doing. One of my duties is helping out with her blog, doing a little research, pulling pictures, etc...

Pulling pictures is not necessarily something I am good at. I do the google searches and bing searches, but I have a real hard time nailing down the correct search terms to get it to pull up what I am looking for and then actually choosing what I think is a good picture is very difficult for me. Gasp! I actually admitted that I have flaws... mark that on the calendar cause it doesn't happen often. (Insert sarcasm font)

My boss (we will call her #1) was working on a blog and asked me to pull some pics and place them in the the blog she wrote. Once I had them situated, she wanted me to schedule the post.

I scoured the internet looking for pics. I found a really cool clock photo (the topic was routines). I thought that would be great, so I saved it and placed it in the blog. I needed one more. I kept looking when I finally came across a cute little comic about routines. I glanced over it thought it would work. I copied and pasted the comic into the blog. I didn't realize it at the time, but that was the beginning of the end...

The morning it was scheduled to post, I got to work and went about my daily routine. I saw my other boss (we will call him #3, not #2 cause that just doesn't sound right) and he seemed a bit distant, but I just thought he was busy. Ehh, not so much. When #1 came in, #3 followed and said, "Jen, we need to talk." Ugh... my heart sank to my stomach. "What did I do?" I was thinking.

Me (timidly): "Ok"

"Do you think this is appropriate for our company?" said #3. He reached out to hand me something. I looked down and saw the comic I chose for the blog. Gulp.... Crap, what was wrong with it? What did I miss? How did I not take time to catch whatever it was prior to posting it? That's totally not me (again, I'm admitting a flaw).

I took a deep breath and looked over the comic, and I saw it... WHAT THE CRAP? How could I have possibly missed that? OH MY WORD! My face flew right past red and went straight to purple. I felt like I was on fire from my head to my toes and I was suddenly tingly all over. I simultaneously wanted to cry, vomit and bury my head in the sand.

No, no it most certainly was not appropriate. I'm not sure exactly what I said at this point, but it was something like, "OH MY GOSH! No, I'm so sorry. I totally didn't see that. I'm so sorry. I have never been so embarrassed. I am SOOOOO sorry. I never would have used that had I seen that. I am sorry." My head was now buried in my hands. I couldn't even look at them.

#3 said "Well, I have to say, I am glad you are responding this way because if you had said yes, it's fine I don't see a problem with it, we would have had a problem. Luckily, #1 saw it before it posted, so there was no harm done." No harm done? I beg to differ... there was quite a bit of harm done to my ego, my pride, my self respect... How could I ever look them in the eye again?

#1 spoke up and said "Thank God, you are reacting this way. I was so worried that you actually thought it was alright." No, no, no, not alright, not alright at all.

I think I just kept saying "Oh my gosh, I am so sorry" over an over again. I think I was hoping the more I said it, the more it would erase from their memories what had just happened. No such luck.

After they laughed it off a bit, and I died a little inside from embarrassment, we went on about our day. Much to my dismay, I had become the joke of the day.... and I still hear about it from time to time.

Are you wondering what the comic was? Well, I refuse to go into detail, but basically there was one tiny little block of the comic that was very, VERY inappropriate. A man and his computer (although blocked with a censor bar) is not a beautiful thing. HOW ON EARTH DID I MISS THAT THE FIRST TIME????

I hope my humiliating story has at least made you smile, maybe made you snicker and if I'm lucky, made you smile.